


flora and fidelity

by miniconsuffrage



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Dinobot lives, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miniconsuffrage/pseuds/miniconsuffrage
Summary: Dinobot awakens in an unfamiliar room, with a companion who is all too familiar.





	flora and fidelity

**Author's Note:**

> guess who just increased the amount of dinobot/op on ao3 by 33.33333%
> 
> (cw for something like a suicidal thought)

There was something Optimus had told him, after he’d returned to the Maximals. After his… dishonorable and frankly humiliating, albeit temporary, defection. He’d lost them their advantage. He’d lost some trust, from some of his teammates. Not from Optimus. Optimus trusted Dinobot more than he deserved, and likely more than was intelligent.

There was something he’d said, back then. “You will always have a place with us, if you choose to take it.”

“Your followers might have qualms with that,” Dinobot had replied. There were many things he could think of doing that would lose him that place.

“You’ll always have a place with me, then,” Optimus amended.

Dinobot hadn’t known what to say too that. He never knew what to say. Optimus had such an easy time, it seemed, speaking about his feelings, and Dinobot had a hard time even acknowledging such a thing existed. One more area where Optimus excelled and Dinobot was woefully behind. He’d never considered that as much of a handicap, before coming to the Maximals. It felt like one now.

Well. _Now_ was relative. _Now_ was immaterial, nearly impossible to grasp onto, and became more so the harder he tried. Dinobot was distantly aware that he hadn’t been himself in some time.

He didn’t know what ‘himself’ would even refer to. He didn’t know where he was, or what had led him here. But those words were in his head. _You’ll always have a place with me_ . And they brought images with them, of the Maximals, of _Optimus,_ of Optimus… helping him. Saving him when he was in danger, trusting him, being kind to him. And images of Dinobot doing the same in return. Or, perhaps “the same” wasn’t right. Kindness and trust were not Dinobot’s strong suits. He liked to think, though, that he had improved. Did Optimus agree?

A voice deep inside him told him it was too late to matter, now. It was just as immaterial as everything else, and where Dinobot would usually feel at the very least irritation at his complete lack of comprehension, here he felt only… exhaustion.

Finally the world solidified, slowly and in pieces. He couldn’t look too hard at any one spot, for fear of it dissolving again in front of him, and that came with a feeling of acute _wrongness_ strong enough that he wanted no part in it. Instead he let it wash over him. He hadn’t been expecting much. Dinobot had made too many mistakes in life to have high hopes in times like this. But this seemed… deceptively normal.

A metal ceiling. A bed underneath him. Four walls and a door, a room that was sparsely decorated and a little outdated, but was _normal_.

There was a table next to him. On it, a small container carrying a specimen of colorful organic plant life. It… stirred something inside him. One more thing he couldn’t quite grasp.

“You’re awake?”

The voice was soft, but it startled him. Optimus Primal himself sat there, on the other side of the nondescript room, and Dinobot—

Dinobot felt sick. Like he was at war with himself, with two parts of himself that were seeing two entirely different pictures before him.

One saw a friend, a….

The other saw an enemy.

“Dinobot? Are you alright?” Optimus asked, and cautiously rose from his seat, quietly approached. The ghost inside Dinobot warned him of danger, urged him to get up and fight. He desperately did not want to go offline without a fight. “What can I do to help?”

“Where am I?” Dinobot asked, rather than answering, through a clenched jaw.

“You’re on board the Ark. You’re safe,” Optimus said, his voice quiet and calming. Nothing about the Ark made Dinobot feel safe. “Do you… remember anything?”

He remembered too much and not enough at the same time. There was _too much_ , all swimming around, confused and out of order, and it slipped through his claws like water.

He needed help, but he didn’t know what it would even look like. “What should I remember?” he asked, looking for anything to grasp onto, and if he sounded more desperate than he intended to he didn’t notice.

“You saved us,” Optimus said, and when he took a step forward, Dinobot was able to push away the part of himself that told him to give Primal a laser to the face. “We never would have beaten Megatron without your help. You didn’t follow his orders. You told us where the shuttle was.”

Dinobot… had done that. He remembered that now, and put that memory on the new timeline he was constructing. But if that had been recent, there were memories before then that were very troubling.

It took some effort, but he managed to sit up. Optimus rushed to help him, and put a hand on his shoulder to help hold him up, and it felt comforting rather than a precursor to harm. Dinobot caught sight of himself—of his claws, his arms and legs, his torso—and it was all _wrong_ , so profoundly wrong. But he remembered this body, remembered hurting those he did not want to hurt. He felt shame wash through him.

He thought to himself, _I should have died in that collision._ And then was startled to find that part of him had wanted to.

Optimus didn’t seem concerned about his past deeds, and Dinobot didn’t know much, but he knew that was so like Optimus. He didn’t take his hand off Dinobot’s shoulder, and instead knelt down by Dinobot’s bed so that they were closer to optic-level.

“Tell me how I can help you,” Optimus implored. “I want to help.”

He always did.

“I’m not sure who I am,” Dinobot admitted. It was getting easier to ignore the ghost that screamed at him for being vulnerable. That had to be a good sign.

Optimus nodded. “Your name is Dinobot. You’re a warrior, and a protector of the innocent. You value honor in everything you do,” Optimus said, and took one of Dinobot’s claws in one of his own hands, the one that wasn’t helping to keep Dinobot upright. “You saved the human race. You saved me, and the other Maximals. You’re a good person. And you’re my friend.”

Dinobot found himself believing it. He had a hard time imagining that Optimus would lie to him.

But then, a memory stirred at him, and he took a moment to experience it fully and then fumble with where to put it on the timeline. “I asked you to speak of me truly,” he said. “The good and bad.”

Optimus actually _laughed_ at that, warm and helpless. “You did,” he agreed, and brought Dinobot’s claws up to his face to press a small kiss to them. “I guess I’m just having a hard time remembering the bad right now.”

...Well. That was.

Well.

“How did I survive?” he asked, rather than making a fool of himself trying to respond to that. As much as he would have liked to.

“You nearly didn’t. I had to run from the explosion, but I was able to find you and pull you out of the Nemesis before it hit the ground. It was close,” Optimus said, and he squeezed Dinobot’s shoulder. “Please, don’t ever do anything like that again.”

“Neither of our lives are without danger,” Dinobot pointed out weakly.

“Not anymore,” Optimus said. “We have Megatron in custody. We’re going back to Cybertron.”

That was a shock. It felt like they had been stuck on that organic planet for a lifetime. “Back to Cybertron?”

“Rhinox rigged up the shuttle to take us home,” Optimus smiled. “We’re leaving as soon as you’re ready.”

“You were waiting on me when you have _Megatron_ in custody?” Dinobot demanded. “You should have left me here! It’s too risky not to.”

“I just got you back, Dinobot. We aren’t leaving you here,” Optimus said.

“It’s strategically unsound,” Dinobot huffed, and that got another laugh out of Optimus. He didn’t see why.

...Actually, there was a tug of familiarity there, but he let that one go. There were more important things to worry about.

“If it’s me you’re waiting on, I’m fine,” Dinobot insisted, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He didn’t get much farther than that, both because of the dizziness that hit him all at once, and because Optimus’s hand on his shoulder held firm. It kept him from standing up and also from falling over.

“He isn’t going anywhere. And neither are you,” Optimus said. “You’ve been through a lot. Just rest for a little while longer.”

Dinobot did not want to rest. There was too much to sort out, too much to put into place. His body didn’t seem to agree with him, and sagged from just the tiniest bit of effort he’d put forth to sit up and turn around. With Optimus guiding him, he ended up with his face pressed against the Maximal leader’s chestplate. This was fine. It was a fine outcome to this particular situation.

He tilted his gaze downward, where Optimus’s hand was still closed around Dinobot’s claws in Dinobot’s lap (the wrong claws, the wrong lap). This was….

Hm.

“When did you get so monstrously huge,” Dinobot muttered.

Optimus chuckled, and moved his other hand to rub Dinobot’s back. “It’s different, isn’t it? Took some getting used to,” he said.

Dinobot supposed it must have. And it wasn’t his first change, either. If Optimus could get used to his new bodies, perhaps Dinobot could also become comfortable in this one, despite its misdeeds. It wasn’t as if his first body had been guiltless, either.

And if he could accept this body, perhaps there were other things he could do, as well.

“Optimus,” Dinobot said.

Optimus leaned back and away from Dinobot, but kept a steadying hand on him. “Yes?”

Dinobot lifted his free claw, and gently, careful to cause no harm, traced the lines and edges of Optimus’s helm. He remembered that place Optimus had offered to him all that time ago, and hoped it was still available.

His prospects looked good. Optimus smiled warmly at him, and Dinobot felt like he should have said something, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Instead, he leaned forward, and Optimus met him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> please sign my petition to adopt "doop" as ship name for this ship, it's very important to me


End file.
